X MEN: FIRST CLASS

Ever wondered what Professor X and Magento were like when they were young? No me neither.

Well they've made X-Men: First Class anyway - it's a prequel to the X-Men movies of the 2000s, set in the 1960s during the Cuban missile crisis.

Young Charles (Professor X) is a little toff who goes off to Oxford, while young Erik (Magneto) is really angry about an evil Nazi (Kevin Bacon) who killed his mum. At one point he's so angry he throws a coin at a terrible pencil drawing of Kevin Bacon's face. I don't know where he got the drawing from, but it looks like he paid one of those rubbish caricaturists in Leicester Square 10 euros for it

(Charles can read minds - BUT only when he puts two fingers on his left temple.
In one part of the film he had to read someone's mind secretly so has to pretend to be putting his head in hands - that fools them! However, this means you could easily defeat Prof X - the world's most powerful psychic remember - by just tying his hands behind his back.)

They're brought together by the C.I.A. who co-opt the gang to help round up some more mutants and then go after Kevin Bacon.

Somehow Kevin had become young and American and changed his name to Sebastian Shaw. He's got nice hair and is the leader of the Hellfire Club - a bunch of bad mutants who want to trick the US and Russia into starting a nuclear war and wiping out human life. Then Kevin can rule over the world! Sadly the world will then be a pile of radioactive rubbish and not really worth ruling. BUT DON'T WORRY ABOUT THAT.

Luckily Kevin has got a special metal hat that stops anyone reading his brain, so again Charles' power is rendered completely useless.

There are two excellent montage sequences in X-Men: First Class. One where Charles and Erik ponce around the world rounding up mutants for their team to the sound of some Sixties jazz-funk. They are:

Darwin - his body will adapt to any envirnoment. He uses it to stick his head in a fish tank and to turn into rock when someone hits him with a stick. THEN HE DIES.

Angel - she's got a magic tatoo that turns into butterfly wings so she can fly(And she can also spit balls of fire from her mouth)

Havoc - fires boring energy from his chest. Mostly useless. When will they learn that energy based mutant powers ARE BORING.

Mystique - can change her appearance to look like anything. She uses this power ONCE in the film against the bad guys. The rest of the time she just turns blue, then fleshy, then blue again.

Banshee - he can scream loudly - and fly too but only when wearing his flappy costume. If it gets ripped, then he just goes back to screaming loudly again. LIKE A BIG BABY.

Beast - got big feet. At one point Beast actually says the immortal line: 'But will the world ever be able to accept my big feet?'. Listen, his big feet are pretty big and not very attractive, but I reckon the world probably would accept his big feet. One of his mates can turn into a fish, but he's more worried about having big feet.

In the second montage, Charles trains all the X-Men to use their powers. Beast runs round the block, Havoc sets fire to a mannequin, Mystique just turns blue again and Magneto makes a satalitte dish turn round. Great for getting a better reception for Sky Sports but quite useless for preventing WWIII.

In the end all the good mutants and the evil mutants and the US/Russian armies have a big stand-off. Erik nicks Kevin Bacon's special hat, ditches Charles and buggers off with all the best mutants. THE END. (Or is it?)

So basically First Class is a bit like a remake of the first X-Men film, if you subsitute Wolverine (the angry, revenge seeking mutant that's hard to control) for Erik, and Sebastian Shaw (the evil, human-hating mutant with designs on world domination) for Magneto. Add in Mystique as the Rogue analouge, and it's pretty much the same film but this time they only spent 2p on the special effects.

X-Men: First Class is alright - I will award it 4 out of 7.